Communications

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:

All State Department documents, reports, files, and electronic-mail messages related to the E.O. 13382 designation of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on October 25, 2007; limited to the following FOIA search constraints:

Although FOIA has always presumed that government records are open to public inspection, the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, Pub. L. 114-185, prohibits agencies from withholding records unless (1) “disclosure is prohibited by law” or (2) “the agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by” one of FOIA’s exemptions. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(8)(A). Thus, in addition to FOIA favoring disclosure and requiring its exemptions to be narrowly construed, Section 552(a)(8)(A) prohibits agencies from using their discretion to broadly withhold records merely because they believe an exemption could technically apply.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Jan. 14, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed. You had assigned it reference number #F-2017-00652.

Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.

I recently inherited one of your cases (M-2015-00693) that appears to be very similar to a new case that you submitted January 14, 2017 (F-2017-00652). I apologize for the delay in processing M-2015-00693. Case F-2017-00652 appears to be a refinement of the original request. Is this correct? If it is then I will close the original and focus on the refined request, which will move much faster through the system than the original would. Please let me know how you would like me to proceed.